sTokens, Social Tokens and Unlock Protocol — Creators Portal

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Dev Protocol — Accelerating Web3 with Clubs

6 min readOct 14, 2021

We are glad to announce that we have been selected by the Unlock Protocol grant program! Unlock Protocol is one of the first projects that come to mind when we think of ways to create valuable Perks for Patrons, their Lock system is perfect for what we need to build the Creators Portal, so we’re really excited to dedicate our time to build our Ecosystem on top of that.

Dev Protocol

Since the beginning of the Dev Protocol ecosystem our goal has been to Maximize Creativity by allowing Creators to monetize their creations; specially for those who didn’t have a chance to monetize themselves and had a big impact on their niche or on their own communities.

We have created a unique staking system where Creators don’t necessarily have to rely on altruistic motives from their community or funding base. This way we could redirect individuals’ self-interest to either improve their perceived benefits when helping a Creator, or even push non-altruistic individuals to fund these Creators. At the same time that Creators onboard Dev Protocol, they mint social tokens that can be used for anything they want, from paying for bug fixes, unlocking gated content to creating a DAO.

Of course the Dev Protocol system is always open for improvement, and that’s exactly how it should be, especially in a fast-paced market that we are building on top of. sTokens is one of those small improvements that potentially can have an enormous positive impact. In this short article I’ll explain what sTokens are, why they are unique, how they can change a lot of things and how the Unlock Protocol can help us move forward!

Original Staking System

Our Original staking system flow as it has been explained various times in the past is really straight forward.

A Patron that wants to fund his favorite OSS Project in the Dev Protocol ecosystem, simply has to buy the DEV token, find his favorite project on stakes.social, stake his tokens. At the moment the tokens are staked, both the Patron and the OSS Project will start accruing DEV token rewards.

Dev Protocol has been about maximizing Creativity for all Creators since the beginning, the original concept of the staking system had to change a bit and this small change will have a huge impact on the reach of the Dev Protocol Ecosystem. The focus changed to all Creators, the flow is the same, but the potential user base expands:

A Patron that wants to fund his favorite Creator in the Dev Protocol Ecosystem, simply has to buy the DEV token, find his favorite project on any of the dApps that the project has a Creator Pool, stake his tokens. At the moment the tokens are staked, both the Patron and the Creator will start accruing DEV token rewards.

The more we improve the ecosystem, the clearer we can see what is the core of Dev Protocol. The Community has always been the gears that make everything work. With that in mind, that key piece of the goal to maximize creativity was developed, an easy way so that Creators can provide Perks and create more value and perceived benefit for the community members. This key is the sToken.

sTokens

sTokens — DIP 66 — are NFTs (ERC-721) that tokenize a staking position on the Dev Protocol ecosystem. You can think of it as the first ‘Proof of Continuous Patronage’, at the time individuals stake DEV Tokens to fund their favorite project they get back an sToken NFT as a ‘receipt’.

How it works

This is another small change just like we’ve seen in the beginning that will have a big impact in the future of Dev Protocol. The Creator staking flow changes a little bit with the introduction of the sTokens.

A Patron that wants to fund his favorite Creator in the Dev Protocol Ecosystem, simply has to buy the DEV token, find his favorite project on any of the dApps that the project has a Creator Pool, stake his tokens. At the moment the tokens are staked he receives an NFT that has all the metadata about his staking position, both the Patron and the Creator will start accruing DEV token rewards.

Now, this NFT that the Patrons receive can expand the staking flow in infinite different ways, this happens because it easily allows the whole staking position to be traded, Creators to offer Perks and to connect Dev Protocol with other projects and communities.

Unlock Protocol

Unlock Protocol can be applied to virtually any website, communities or platform. It is a great way for Creators to Monetize themselves, Premium content and communities can be easily locked, and only real members have access to these. This system can be really valuable for most fans and community members.

sTokens and Social Tokens as the Keys to unlock the Decentralized Creator Economy

Dev Protocol has over 1600 projects onboarded on stakes.social and we’re soon to have 3 new dApps using Dev Protocol and expanding our Creator Base by a few times. We want to integrate Unlock Protocol as a Perks generator into this great ecosystem of Creators that we are building.

Creators will be able to lock anything they want and create memberships, sTokens are the perfect keys for those locks. A Proof of Continuous Patronage as the NFT that unlocks content should be desirable for many creators.

Social Tokens minted by every project onboarded on the Dev Protocol ecosystem is also a great way to not only reward those who are active community members but to create value for that token.

All of these will be used to develop the Creators Portal, a way to easily Create Perks and reward community members while providing a new way for Creators to monetize themselves. All of this can be done by integrating Unlock Protocol into our Ecosystem, both of our projects have a lot in common. Maximizing Creativity by properly monetizing Creators, even the ones that couldn’t be monetized before is the way forward to build a Decentralized Creator Economy.

Special contributions to this article were provided by Pedro. 💌

Dev Protocol is the core of the Decentralized Creator Economy that supports sustainable revenue opportunity and global expansion by using crypto assets. Start your own economy easily with a powerful blockchain solution designed to help grow your creator business.